


lost in his story

by mercutia



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Infidelity, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 04:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19287844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercutia/pseuds/mercutia
Summary: It was obvious to Callum what it meant to be gay. It was obvious to Callum that gay was never something he wanted to be.





	lost in his story

**Author's Note:**

> A brief and unbeta'd introspective look into the past of Callum Highway.

Callum was twelve years old when he first heard the word ‘gay.’ Based on its usage, he would not have been able to tell you what it meant. Based on its usage, ‘gay’ meant bad. ‘Gay’ meant someone who should be left out, because they were not good at football. ‘Gay’ meant difficult, especially when applied to maths homework. Callum learned at twelve years old that he did not want to be ‘gay,’ but sometimes he was. 

Callum was ‘gay’ when dad told him that no, he couldn’t go to Robbie’s house after school, because he had not finished cleaning his room. Callum was ‘gay’ when he fell off Jeremiah’s skateboard after he told everyone he knew exactly how to ride one. He never thought to ask anyone older than, say, Year 9 what it meant. It was obvious to Callum what it meant to be  _ gay _ . It was obvious to Callum that gay was never something he wanted to be. 

**

When Callum was fourteen years old, Cynthia in his year slipped a note in his bag asking him if he wanted to go steady with her. The honest answer was no, he didn’t particularly want to  _ go steady _ with Cynthia, but Robbie told him that she was ‘quite fit’ and hinted that something must be truly off about him if he didn’t want to kiss her beyond the gates of the school like other couples his age were doing. 

Maybe something  _ was _ off about him. 

Regardless, Callum started going steady with Cynthia. He supposed that made her his girlfriend. Sometimes they went to the cafe near school when classes were done. He often kissed her hello and kissed her goodbye at the gates, beyond where the teachers could see yet in full view of everyone their own age. She liked to talk about this one punk band that he lied and told her he listened to. 

He liked to stare at Robbie when she told him a story that was supposed to make him smile. It was easier that way. 

**

When Callum was sixteen, he knew what gay really meant. When Callum was sixteen, Robbie told him that it was time to teach  _ that queer _ a lesson about staring at them in the locker room. When Callum was sixteen, he developed a strange and unexplainable stomach illness that kept him from attending PE class on days when Robbie was in a bad mood. 

He also found himself feeling genuinely sick to his stomach when the ginger with the warm brown eyes brushed his hand as they traded notes. One feeling was more real than the other. He didn’t examine either too closely.

**

At age nineteen, Callum’s best friend leaned in a bit too close when they were playing video games together, laughing after his FIFA win. Callum felt his breath catch somewhere in his throat, and he shoved Dan’s shoulder a bit too hard, making clear that this moment would never happen again.

Except that it did, when Callum had finished the bottle of vodka they’d bought to share, and Callum was the one who leaned in. Dan didn’t move, let the kiss happen, then put Callum to bed. They didn’t talk about it. Dan started dating a bloke from the local gym. They didn’t talk about it.

**

Things were different in the army. Physical and emotional intimacy were expected. Sure, at some level one had to keep up the facade of stoic masculinity and pining talk of girls back home, but relationships developed differently. Quickly. Unnaturally. Callum felt like his muscles were tensed all at once. He felt like his whole body was melting in a hot sauna. Somehow both of these versions of himself existed in the same universe, and with fear came freedom. 

Callum was always careful. Unlike Roger, he didn’t stare at the throats of men swallowing in the mess hall. He didn’t let the other men know his eyes occasionally wandered in the shower. He didn’t joke about  _ helping a lad out  _ at night when they were all whining about the ladies back home. Roger did. Only a few of the other men ever grumbled about it, harsh names muttered under their breath when commanding officers weren’t around. 

Callum made the mistake of nodding in agreement to something Roger said once. The other man had tilted his head, looking at him like he saw more than the surface lies that Callum had built up in a fortress around himself. The freedom of indulgence in male camaraderie combusted, and Callum only felt the tension of exposure. Callum wasn’t strong like Roger; he couldn’t ignore the whispers that the other men would have for him. He wouldn’t be able to bear the dread of anyone back home finding out that he was just as they described in his school days:  _ bad, an outcast, wrong. _

So he hardened himself. Callum became isolated from the men, justifying it to himself with the argument that attachment causes weakness in the field. He became an island, and he could feel his patch of self-inflicted loneliness spreading through to the best parts of him. Callum Highway was wilting, and no one benefited from it. When he sustained his injury in the line of duty, the pain that shot through his side felt more like the beginning of a rebirth. 

The man he’d been, the insecure and terrified boy, was hidden away. He would step back into the light with a newfound commitment to the Callum Highway that his father and brother envisioned him to be. 

**

Callum met Whitney Dean, and  _ he fell in love _ . It was enough of the truth that he’d convinced even himself that no falsehood lie in that statement. He’d never been in love before. Who was he to judge whether this was what it felt like? She made him smile. She made him feel safe. Callum could be more himself with her than he’d ever been with anyone else; Whitney may not be allowed to see every crack and crevice of his soul, but she saw more than most, and she never judged him. She kissed him, and it was wet and weird, yet he felt it inside himself, her lips tracing the pieces that splintered. Callum had always lived a life divided, between who he was and who he wanted to be. Whitney made who he wanted to be real. For her, he could cross nations and part seas. 

Except no part of that was grounded in realism. Every day, Callum tightened his grip on the fantasy life he had built for himself, and every day, he felt it slipping; it was in the moments when Whitney’s kisses bored him, when he made excuses to glide away from her wandering fingers, when she alluded to a future that had him gritting his teeth. She was his best friend. She was his prison warden. 

Of course, it was wrong to vilify her. The unsuspecting girl had no idea that her loving, doting boyfriend was a fraud. If anything, Whitney was the victim in the greatest con of Walford. 

**

It was Ben Mitchell who toppled Callum’s carefully stacked house of cards. 

It started with, “I can’t understand why you don’t like yourself.” Callum had felt himself go cold at the words. But a part of him came alive, wanting to reach out towards the man who had revealed an intimate knowledge of Callum’s self without tearing him apart in examination. Ben saw what so many had simply overlooked, and it terrified Callum that this had occurred without his awareness. The familiar grade school nausea returned with a vengeance. 

It ended with, “I smell queer,” in many ways an answer to the statement that initially prodded Callum’s guarded secrets. Callum had let himself go weak when he shoved Ben against that door; the stupidly optimistic part of his brain that he would never be able to kill knew Ben had recognized something in him, and, maybe, he wanted Ben to see exactly what that something was. And now he had. Callum’s breath had hitched, his eyes had dropped to Ben’s lips, his hands had loosened and turned too tender. He would never forgive himself for that aching moment of desperation for a genuine human connection. 

Ben Mitchell had ruined everything.

**

When he kissed Ben, Callum let out the breath that he’d been holding since Dan leaned in too far when they were nineteen. 

Or maybe he had exhaled those twenty years of pain when Ben had so gently caressed his cheek, stroking away a tear along with the last of Callum’s resolve. Here he was, the one thing Callum wanted most in the world: not a person he loved, exactly, but a person that he could love. A man who saw him and wanted to see him. Ben pressed every one of Callum’s buttons; it was all evidence of someone who cared enough to know  _ him. _ So he leaned in, pressing his lips to Ben’s a moment before they’d be meeting each other halfway. 

When Callum pulled back, he opened his eyes slowly, afraid to see a disappointed expression in Ben’s eyes. But it was Ben whose eyelids fluttered open last, finally meeting Callum’s gaze, carefully guarded yet without the usual piercing hardness. It was a complicated expression that Callum wanted to know every facet of. He pulled Ben back to him. 

Amidst the blur of clothes being peeled off and the alternating sensations of Ben’s tongue and his stubble, Callum felt ill. And alive. If he asked a psychologist to explain the entire spectrum of human emotion, he was sure he could have introduced her to previously undiscovered feelings. 

It wasn’t until the next morning that he committed himself to simply one:  _ shame _ . Callum had a talent for burying the parts of him that no one needed to see. He would do it again, and hide away the glorious relief and comfort he had found in Ben. If it wasn’t for the sake of his own imagined future, he would do it for Whitney, she who chose to love a man like a makeshift mansion. He strengthened his resolve, tightened his arms around the girl of his dreams, and ignored the loudest part of his brain telling him that if anyone could break through to the real Callum Highway, it would be Ben Mitchell.

**Author's Note:**

> not really sure what the intent was here other than 'get through a Wednesday without Eastenders.' thanks for reading! please point out any glaring Americanisms.


End file.
